With this kind of book, even though it is fiction, people tend to assume you are talking about yourself. Where do you draw the ideas/inner thoughts for the central character?
Everyone assumes, with Bride Stripped Bare and this one, that it is my husband and myself. It is not. The books are fiction. Close friends can vouch for that; strangers may think they know us, but they don’t. I’m a keen observer of life, and it all gets poured into my writing. My writer’s notebooks that I’ve had since the age of fourteen are constantly mined for my fiction—in them are thoughts, conversation scraps, story ideas, observations. It’s my magpie mind, constantly on the prowl. The one thing I demand of my writing is that it has the ring of truth, because there’s an incredible potency in honesty. I think that’s why there’s often the confusion. I’m fascinated by the things we may be thinking but rarely have the courage to say. Love the “aha” moment when readers may think, “yes, me too,” but perhaps have never articulated that thought, especially to their partners.
The Bride Stripped Bare was written under the name Anonymous. Were you much more comfortable with the sexual nature of the book this time around?
Virginia Woolf describes anonymity as a refuge for female writers, and it certainly was for me during the writing of Bride. For a long time there it felt like my life was one huge flinch in reaction to the flurry surrounding the book. I still don’t know who outed me to the press, and it was hugely traumatic to lose control of that book and my professional life. I vowed I’d never write another book like it, but then gradually I moved on, buoyed by the heart-lifting reaction to the intense honesty of the book. Almost a decade later I feel like a different person. More mature and more confident, and with that has come a loosening. I’m no longer bound by what people think. I have a voice. Perhaps that’s the inevitable letting-go that comes with middle age, particularly as a woman enters the age of invisibility. It can be an extraordinarily playful and freeing time. Personally I feel like I’m becoming lighter as I age, reveling in the sheer wonder of life and everything around me. In terms of sex it’s like my God, that our bodies can do that—still do that!
Your book is extremely honest when it comes to sex, but do you think many people are—to their partners, their friends? Or is there this idea of what sex should be that people tend to conform to or are embarrassed to go against? Do you think there is more honesty in talking about sex now, or is it informed by what people read in Cosmo or draw from characters like Samantha Jones from Sex and the City?
What relationship can survive the shock of absolute candor? Gabriel Garcia Márquez said every person has three lives: a personal life, a private life, and a secret life, and it’s the secret one I’m fascinated by. The raw underbelly of our sexuality in all its ugliness and vulnerability, and all its beauty, too. It’s rare to reveal to a sexual partner the core of your secret self. I’m intrigued by that. How far we can go in terms of candor—and if we really want to. There’s something so visceral about female sexuality, and I think a lot of men have little idea of the depth and complexity of it.
What are the most honest interpretations/accounts of sexuality you have seen in film or read in books?
The French writer Houellebecq is the standard bearer for me. His novel Atomised, for its shocking honesty, delicious grubbiness, vulnerability, and courage. In terms of films, Jane Campion’s In the Cut was extremely brave and honest; and at the other end of the scale there was a lot of honesty in that deliciously funny opening of Bridesmaids.
The Victorian book that you draw the quotes from is sometimes strangely spot-on in its sentiment. Tell us a little about how you found this book, and if you think any of this wisdom still applies. Why did you choose to use this lesson format again in With My Body?
As with The Bride Stripped Bare I went back to my deeply eccentric London library, in St. James Square, in search of dusty old tomes on womanhood. I found a fabulous little advice manual for young women heading out to the colonies. It was a Victorian how-to manual on everything from pleasing a husband to dealing with other women to raising children. Its tone was so sparky, brisk, matter-of-fact, and very wise. It was intriguingly anonymous, but you just knew that the author was a shrewd—and warm—observer who’d lived a rich and complicated life, an older woman trying to steer younger ones through the precarious choppy waters of early adulthood. There are life lessons in it that are still shockingly pertinent today.
Bride and With My Body are in part inspired by the writings of Colette, Anaïs Nin, and Marguerite Duras. What are the qualities of these writers that have influenced your work?
Their unflinching take on womanhood, in all its complexity—the richness of sexuality, relationships, female competitiveness, motherhood.
The memories of the main character’s sexual awakening as a teenager triggers a new phase in her current married relationship—even though it has been pretty ho-hum in the bedroom for a while. One of the things that you usually can’t have again in a long-term relationship is the joy of discovery of a new lover and the excitement and novelty that can bring, but you seem to provide hope that, even after years of marriage, you can take things to a new level and rediscover each other.
The book is a manifesto, as much as anything, about how to unlock a woman’s sexuality. This can happen at any stage of adult life, even when a situation seems like a lost cause. I’m fascinated by that.
A lot of women on the Facebook page for this book have suggested that men should read this. Has your husband, and if he has, how has he reacted?
I love that women want their partners to read my books—to learn, to understand. I hear stories of women putting the novels on the pillow beside them with the words “read this, now you will understand.” My husband finds the books deeply sexy because they delve into a woman’s psyche. He loves being surprised.
Your books are sometimes labeled controversial, but do you think they are?
They’re about the truth, and there shouldn’t be anything controversial about honesty—but of course, it’s often the most shocking thing of all.
Read on
Have You Read?
More by Nikki Gemmell
THE BOOK OF RAPTURE
Three children wake up in a basement room. They have been drugged and taken from their beds in the middle of the night. Where are their parents? Whom can they trust? The family has been betrayed to the government, and Salt Cottage, their home on a cliff top above the ocean, is no longer safe. Their mother’s scientific work has put them all in danger. She must put her faith in an old family friend—and in her children’s own resilience and courage.
“Haunting, thought-provoking, and beautifully written.”
—Marie Claire
“[Gemmell’s] writing is powerful and heartrending as she delves into the working of human relationships, love, and family.”
—Courier-Mail
THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE
A woman disappears, leaving behind an incendiary diary chronicling a journey of sexual awakening. To all who knew her, she was the good wife: happy, devoted, content. But the diary reveals a secret self, one who has discovered that her new marriage contains mysteries of its own.
“Titillating … like an artful striptease, The Bride Stripped Bare ensnares us with its rawness.”
—San Francisco Chronicle, a Best Book of the Year
“[The Bride Stripped Bare] affects a dreamy mood and a poetic brand of erotica.”
—New York Times
LOVESONG
The heartbreaking story of Lillie Bird, a woman from a locked religious community who finds freedom at last in a strange new world, England, but is accused of murder.
“Gemmell evokes place superbly … while Lillie, clever, confused, and vulnerable, is real and touching.”
—Sunday Times
“A lovely, lyrical creation that has melody and melancholy aching through its sentences … bewitchingly good.”
—Elle, Book of the Month
ALICE SPR
INGS
Snip Freeman lost her father long ago. Accompanied by her lover, Dave, she embarks on a journey into the vast and fierce landscape of the Australian interior to find her father and unravel the terrifying silence of her childhood.
“Alice Springs is like a female version of Kerouac’s On the Road.”
—Cosmopolitan
“Leaks deep into the imagination … . haunts one long after the book ends.”
—The Times
SHIVER
A young woman, Fin, fulfills her ambition to visit Antarctica, the last great wilderness on earth. Here she integrates with the local community, learning to respect their customs and way of life. But she breaks the strictest taboo of all when she falls in love.
“Gemmell writes brilliantly.”
—Sunday Times
“Her inimitable, urgent, and demanding style makes her books impossible to put down or forget.”
—Madame Figaro
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Other Books by Nikki Gemmell
Shiver
Cleave
Lovesong
The Bride Stripped Bare
Pleasure: An Almanac of the Heart
The Book of Rapture
Why You Are Australian
Credits
Cover design by Amanda Kain
Cover photograph © plainpicture/PhotoAlto
Copyright
First published in 2011 in the United Kingdom by Fourth Estate, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
P.S.™ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.
WITH MY BODY. Copyright © 2012 by Nikki Gemmell. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
‘The Son’ by Pablo Neruda, translated by Donald D. Walsh, from The Captain’s Verses, copyright © Pablo Neruda and Donald D. Wash 1972. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Group.
FIRST HARPER PERENNIAL EDITION PUBLISHED 2012.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-06-212263-6
EPub Edition © MAY 2012 ISBN: 978-0-06-212264-3
12 13 14 15 16 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Prologue
I
Lesson 1
Lesson 2
Lesson 3
Lesson 4
Lesson 5
Lesson 6
Lesson 7
Lesson 8
Lesson 9
Lesson 10
Lesson 11
Lesson 12
Lesson 13
Lesson 14
Lesson 15
Lesson 16
Lesson 17
Lesson 18
II
Lesson 19
Lesson 20
Lesson 21
Lesson 22
Lesson 23
Lesson 24
Lesson 25
Lesson 26
Lesson 27
Lesson 28
Lesson 29
Lesson 30
Lesson 31
Lesson 32
Lesson 33
Lesson 34
III
Lesson 35
Lesson 36
Lesson 37
Lesson 38
Lesson 39
Lesson 40
Lesson 41
Lesson 42
Lesson 43
Lesson 44
Lesson 45
IV
Lesson 46
Lesson 47
Lesson 48
Lesson 49
Lesson 50
Lesson 51
Lesson 52
Lesson 53
Lesson 54
Lesson 55
Lesson 56
Lesson 57
Lesson 58
Lesson 59
Lesson 60
Lesson 61
Lesson 62
Lesson 63
Lesson 64
Lesson 65
Lesson 66
Lesson 67
Lesson 68
Lesson 69
V
Lesson 70
Lesson 71
Lesson 72
Lesson 73
Lesson 74
Lesson 75
Lesson 76
Lesson 77
Lesson 78
Lesson 79
Lesson 80
Lesson 81
Lesson 82
Lesson 83
Lesson 84
Lesson 85
Lesson 86
Lesson 87
Lesson 88
Lesson 89
Lesson 90
Lesson 91
VI
Lesson 92
Lesson 93
Lesson 94
Lesson 95
Lesson 96
Lesson 97
Lesson 98
Lesson 99
Lesson 100
Lesson 101
Lesson 102
Lesson 103
Lesson 104
Lesson 105
Lesson 106
Lesson 107
Lesson 108
Lesson 109
Lesson 110
Lesson 111
Lesson 112
Lesson 113
Lesson 114
Lesson 115
Lesson 116
Lesson 117
Lesson 118
Lesson 119
VII
Lesson 120
Lesson 121
Lesson 122
Lesson 123
Lesson 124
Lesson 125
Lesson 126
Lesson 127
Lesson 128
Lesson 129
Lesson 130
Lesson 131
Lesson 132
Lesson 133
Lesson 134
Lesson 135
Lesson 136
Lesson 137
Lesson 138
Lesson 139
Lesson 140
Lesson 141
Lesson 142
Lesson 143
Lesson 144
Lesson 145
Lesson 146
Lesson 147
Lesson 148
Lesson 149
Lesson 150
Lesson 151
VIII
Lesson 152
Lesson 153
Lesson 154
Lesson 155
Lesson 156
Lesson 157
Lesson 158
Lesson 159
Lesson 160
Lesson 161
Lesson 162
Lesson 163
Lesson 164
Lesson 165
Lesson 166
Lesson 167
Lesson 168
IX
Lesson 169
Lesson 170
Lesson 171
Lesson 172
Lesson 173
Lesson 174
Lesson 175
Lesson 176
Lesson 177
Lesson 178
Lesson 179
Lesson 180
Lesson 181
Lesson 182
Lesson 183
Lesson 184
Lesson 185
Lesson 186
Lesson 187
Lesson 188
Lesson 189
Lesson 190
Lesson 191
Lesson 192
Lesson 193
Lesson 194
Lesson 195
Lesson 196
Lesson 197
Lesson 198
Lesson 199
Lesson 200
Lesson 201
X
Lesson 202
Lesson 203
Lesson 204
Lesson 205
Lesson 206
Lesson 207
Lesson 208
Lesson 209
Lesson 210
Lesson 211
Lesson 212
Lesson 213
Lesson 214
Lesson 215
Lesson 216
Lesson 217
Lesson 218
Lesson 219
Lesson 220
Lesson 221
Lesson 222
Lesson 223
Lesson 224
Lesson 225–The Last
P.S. Insights, Interviews & More…
Other Books by Nikki Gemmell
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
With My Body Page 27
